Archives

This is more of a call-out than an article. Last week I announced at my church that as of the end of 2014 I would be resigning my position as director of youth ministries. I’ve never been sure why that’s plural. It’s actually a dual resignation; my spouse Britta is the director of our church’s children’s ministry. It may also ...

What you believe is central to determining how you do ministry. That sounds obvious, but most of our belief/theology talk centers around what and how we teach. The reality is that what we believe has very practical claims on our day to day decisions in ministry as well as our big structural designs of our programs. That idea is the ...

It does happen from time to time. We all know the double work that occurs before you take time off, especially if you’re trying to string together a few days away. It usually results in a soul-crushing couple of days beforehand of trying to remember who needs to know what followed by a laundry-til-midnight packing session. Don’t do that ...

I know, that does sound awesome. I was having a planning meeting with my youth a few weeks ahead of our back-to-school party. I don’t remember what I said that was misheard, but the rest of the conversation went like this: Youth: “Did you just say ‘life-sized Chutes & Ladders’?” Me: “What?” Youth: “I thought you said ‘life-sized Chutes ...

Take your pick of teen sex curriculum for churches and you will find a common outcome for the majority of them: a purity pledge often accompanied by a purity ring. Since this focus has been so widespread and been going on for so long, we have more than what we need for a scientific study on its effectiveness. You probably ...

Students are heading back to school which mean’s its time for a new set of themed ice breakers! 1. Making the Grade People Scavenger Hunt: The goal of this is to be the first student get a “100.” Each student must go around filling in each of the number questions and writing the name of the person who gave the ...

So last spring I led a breakout session titled “Faith vs. Doubt vs. Wonder” at Faith Forward, a terrific new children & youth ministry conference in Nashville, TN. There are great, great minds from ministry and all things spiritual involved and I’m excited to be a part of it. The outline for my talk got upended the week before ...

This week ends our summer series on Building A Philosophy Of Sustainable Youthwork. Our hope is that you can use all 13 principles as you shape ministry over the next school year. In prior weeks we have focused on the first twelve principles: Youthwork is – Family Based, Congregational, Relational, Discipling, Missional, Evangelistic, Holistic, Bible Based, Experiential, Youth-led, Utilizes Open-ended Discussion ...

In prior weeks we have focused on the first eleven principles: Youthwork is – Family Based, Congregational, Relational, Discipling, Missional, Evangelistic, Holistic, Bible Based, Experiential, Youth-led and Utilizes Open-ended Discussion. This week we move onto number twelve: Principle #12 – Youthwork Develops Youth As Christian Leaders. Developing principled Christian leaders for the church and the world. The church must recruit ...

In prior weeks we have focused on the first ten principles: Youthwork is – Family Based, Congregational, Relational, Discipling, Missional, Evangelistic, Holistic, Bible Based, Experiential and Youth-led. This week we move onto number eleven: Principle #11 – Youthwork utilizes open-ended discussion. I am personally a big fan of Socrates. Maybe a better way to say it is that I think ...